World News

Triple car bombing in northern Syria

by
The Canadian Press | Story:
85931 -
Jan 16, 2013 / 6:32 am

Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, damages cars are seen after an explosion hit a university in Aleppo, Syria, Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013. Two explosions struck the main university in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Tuesday, causing an unknown number of casualties, state media and anti-government activists said. There were conflicting reports as to what caused the blast at Aleppo University, which was in session Tuesday. (AP Photo/SANA)

A triple car bombing killed at least 22 people in northern Syria on Wednesday, a government official and activists said, a day after massive blasts at a university campus in the city of Aleppo left 87 dead.

It was not immediately clear what the target of the three almost simultaneous blasts in the city of Idlib was.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the bombings targeted security vehicles near the local security headquarters and a checkpoint. At least 24 people were killed, most of them regime forces, it said.

However, a government official said the blasts hit a major highway and a roundabout in Idlib, killing 22 people and wounding 35. The official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media, did not say what the target was.

Rebels control vast areas of the Idlib countryside, but the city itself is controlled by the regime.

The bombings in Idlib come on the heels of the twin blasts a day earlier that ripped through the Aleppo University campus, which anti-regime activists said killed 87 people.

The Observatory said the death toll could rise even further because medics have collected unidentified body parts and some of the more than 150 wounded are in critical condition.

Syria's Ministry of Higher Education suspended classes and exams at all Syrian universities on Wednesday, "in mourning for the souls of the heroic martyrs who were assassinated by the treacherous terrorist hand," the state news service reported.

The SANA report quoted the minister of higher education, Mahmoud Mualla, as saying that Assad had ordered the reconstruction of Aleppo University "with the utmost speed."